1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a status management device, a status management method, and a recording medium, for managing status information within a device. The present invention relates, in particular, to a status management device, a status management method, and a recording medium, for transmitting status information between an application that processes the status information of a communication channel or the like in a device and another application that requires the status information.
2. Description of the Related Art
A general device stores a plurality of applications to execute processings based on the stored applications. Furthermore, in many cases, the plurality of applications in the device work together to execute a processing. For this reason, the device is required to transfer information of a status related to the processing handled by one application to another application.
In general, in a device operated by program control, a management unit for managing a status retains status information in a concentrated manner. Moreover, in general, in the device operated by program control, an application that requests status information directly obtains the status information through an application processing the status information.
A method of allowing a computer system to manage status information is disclosed in, for example, JP 9-69083 A (hereinafter, referred to as Reference 1). Specifically, a management unit of the computer system gathers status information from each agent by polling to register the gathered status information in a constitution management database. In this manner, the management unit of the computer system manages the status information such as a system program or a business program in an integrated fashion.
However, in the above-described general management method the application processing status information (for example, an application for controlling and monitoring a communication channel or the like) and a management application for managing the status information (the management unit for managing the status information) both manage the status information in a separate manner. Therefore, in the above-described general management method, the management unit is required to manage the latest status. If the management unit does not consequently monitor the application having the status information, there arises a problem that inconsistency in status occurs between the application processing the status information and the management application (unit).
Moreover, the above-described general method of transmitting the status information between the applications, it is necessary for each application to separately manage a query destination and a notification destination of the status. Therefore, the above-described general method of transferring status information between the applications has a problem that the implementation or maintenance of applications becomes complicated as the number of related applications increases.
Furthermore, according to the invention described in the above-cited Reference 1, the device that processes the status (agent) and the management unit that has to constantly manage the status information, in view of the system architecture, both manages the status information in a separate manner. Therefore, in the invention described in the above-cited Reference 1, the management unit is required to manage the latest status. If the management unit does not consequently monitor all the agents (for example, reduce a time interval between pollings), there arises a problem that inconsistency in status occurs between the application and the management unit. Furthermore, in the above-cited Reference 1, since the management unit has to consequently monitor all the agents (for example, to reduce a time interval between pollings), there is a problem that a load on a CPU disadvantageously increases as the number of agents increases.